Beyond Perfection
by Esaema
Summary: Is the quest for power and perfection really worth it? The fairy tale Snow White through the Evil Stepmother's POV.


Author's Note: This is the story of Snow White told from the Evil Step- mother's perspective.  
  
Disclaimer: I obviously do not own the fairy tale Snow White. The lines in quotation marks are from "Snow White" retold by Josephine Poole, which is a very nice book with amazing illustrations. I recommend you read it - it's a great book.  
  
~ Beyond Perfection ~  
  
//"Mirror, Mirror on the wall, Who is the fairest of us all?"//  
  
I dreamed of great things as a child, for how could I be less than great? I was perfect, with golden waves of hair, violet blue eyes and skin flawless and pale as a white lily. I had heard my perfection described many times before. So many times that it became common place. I did not only posses perfection - I was Perfection.  
  
All men saw me as Perfection, but I did not need them. Perfection does not need love, only power. The boys of the small village where I lived could not see that. They foolishly thought that I would choose one of them out of love. I was not a fool like them.  
  
Yes, admit that I did once have foolish thoughts of a boy. He was not perfection in any way shape or form. He was gawky and scrawny with crooked teeth and muddy eyes, but he had something that the others didn't. A something that was not perfect - it went beyond perfection, into realm where perfection did not matter.  
  
I would stay with him for hours on end, listening and talking by turns. That realm enchanted me, and I grew almost.. close to the boy.  
  
But I did not belong with him. I was Perfection and Perfection does not need love. So I abandoned the gawky boy for my dreams, my dreams of wealth, money and power.  
  
//"You are the fairest of them all."//  
  
Soon my dreams came, in the form of a messenger that spread the word that the young Queen had died. So I left the boy with the something-that-was- beyond-perfection behind in my quest for power.  
  
The quest was surprisingly easy, for the King saw my perfection just as well as the village boys did. We were married just a year after he had first laid eyes on me and I had my achieved my dreams - I was the most powerful woman in the Kingdom, but in my heart I felt an ache that would not go away.  
  
It was my stepdaughter, Snow White as they called her who caused me the heart ache. She was not a beautiful child, she was gawky and clumsy, but everyone loved her and her childish ways.  
  
I hated her.  
  
It was whispered that I hated her for her beauty - her perfection, but that is not the whole truth. I also hated her because she had that beyond- perfect quality that that boy from my old village had. The one I had almost loved.  
  
Every time I saw her I was reminded of him. When she smiled I saw his smile, when she laughed I heard his laugh. I thought that when her beauty grew her beyond-perfection would be hidden, but that was not so. As her beauty grew, so did that other quality.  
  
Finally my mirror showed me what I did not want to see.  
  
//"Queen, you are full fair, 'tis true, But Snow white is still fairer than you."//  
  
Snow White was fairer then me.  
  
I was no longer perfection.  
  
She had taken away everything from me. Her very presence taunted me, for she not only was perfect, but she also possessed the thing I had never owned - that beyond-perfection quality.  
  
I had to do something to regain what I had lost. I was Queen, I had power and I would not settle for less than perfection. So I bribed a huntsman who I thought hated Snow White as much as I. But I made a mistake in his loyalties; he spared Snow White and fooled me. He paid dearly when I found him out.  
  
So I plotted her downfall again, but she was spared by the compassion of others. Three times I visited her, disguised, playing on her naiveté and twice she was saved at last minute by the ugly, little men who protected her. But the third time I outsmarted them.  
  
I brewed an enchanted, poisoned apple that was so beautiful no one - especially not Snow White - could resist a taste.  
  
Perfection.  
  
When she collapsed I laughed. I was and would always be.. Perfection.  
  
But something happened that I did not intend. She was rescued by a prince, who saw her perfection through a glass coffin. She married him and they will live happily ever after.  
  
I could not stop the wedding although I did try. I brewed a poisoned rose that would kill once it drew blood. I planned to place it on her pillow so it would pierce her neck, but as soon as I set eyes on her - the blushing bride, her beyond-perfection quality struck me with such force it felt like a slap. In that moment I forgot everything but my envy of Snow White, I clutched the stem of the poisoned rose with so much hatred I drew blood.  
  
Now I am dying and I finally know what that beyond-perfection quality that I never could possess is. It is love. And through my quest for power and perfection, I threw it away. I envy Snow White for the love she possesses and as I die I wish I had chosen differently.  
  
I wish for that beyond perfect quality.  
  
I wish I had chosen love.  
  
//"O Queen, although you are of beauty rare,  
  
The young bride is a thousand times more fair."//  
  
END 


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